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WASHINGTON (AP) — At the FBI’s explosives lab in Virginia, experts are picking apart a sophisticated new al-Qaida bomb to figure out whether it could have slipped past airport security and taken down a commercial airplane, U.S. officials said.

The unexploded bomb represents an intelligence prize, the result of a covert CIA operation in Yemen that thwarted a suicide mission around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, officials said. The device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The device is an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said.

President Barack Obama had been monitoring the operation since last month, the White House said Monday evening. White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the president was assured the device posed no threat to the public.

“The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand,” Hayden said.

The operation unfolded even as the White House and Homeland Security Department assured the public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the U.S. around the May 2 anniversary of bin Laden’s death in a raid by Navy SEALs on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

On May 1, the Homeland Security Department said, “We have no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the U.S. tied to the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.”

And if anyone doubts the MSM is liberal:

The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.

How many times did the media rush to out secret info under President Bush?

Good men sleep peaceably in their beds at night because
rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

I'm just surprised that al Queda seems to be trying to perfect the underwear bomb after the first total failure. They really aren't all that creative or adaptive.

There is an al Qaeda engineer, toiling in obscurity, who waxes eloquent about the need for incendiary undergarments, who draws his inspiration from other pioneers who did not abandon their work after their initial setbacks. That engineer, who spends his days deeply researching the possibilities of explosive underwear, is one of the unsung heroes of the Global Jihad. Just as Orville and Wilbur Wright were told, "If man were meant to fly, he'd have wings," so too has that engineer been told, "If man were meant to violently explode from his pants, Allah (PBUH) would have given him 72 virgins in this life!" Someday, when young men are detonating their crotches, exploding their rectums and busting their balls with his technological breakthrough, he will be recognized for his genius!

WASHINGTON – The would-be bomber in the airline plot was actually working as a U.S. intelligence informant, but the CIA had Al Qaeda fooled from the start.

Fox News has learned that a government source familiar with intelligence confirmed that an international sting operation infiltrated the Al Qaeda cell. The informant was apparently one and the same as the bomber got the device out.

Last month, U.S. intelligence learned that Al Qaeda's Yemen branch hoped to launch a spectacular attack using a new, nearly undetectable bomb aboard an airliner bound for America, officials say.

But the man the terrorists were counting on to carry out the attack was actually working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence, U.S. and Yemeni officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The dramatic sting operation thwarted the attack before it had a chance to succeed.

Good men sleep peaceably in their beds at night because
rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

You can't "foil" a terror plot, when you helped set it up and knew about it before it was conceived.

another real good job for the Obama administration too.

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound - Unknown

You can't "foil" a terror plot, when you helped set it up and knew about it before it was conceived.

Hey Molon ...

Lay off the CIA. Is an "independent" agency set up to help and work with the government in power, to protect this country at the behest of the President. Their operations are designed to be covert and I detest it when they are accidently or purposely, exposed to the public.

These agents take their lives in their hands on a daily basis in order to do their highly risky jobs. Could you possibly imagine how much "intelligence" and guts it took to infiltrate Al Qaida in the first place, and then get out alive after?

All of the above ... I must admit, written by an advocate of author Vince Flynn's unflinching "Mitch Rapp" character! ...